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Psychogenic Non‐Epileptic Seizures

Thank you for writing “The Seizures No One Wants to Talk About” (Nov./Dec. 2008). I believe you did a good job stressing that people who have been diagnosed with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures are not faking them. As someone who has been diagnosed with both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, I have been accused of “faking” many times, both by relatives and the medical professionals who should have known better. Hopefully, this article will help educate.

It is my hope that neurologists will not be satisfied with the simplistic explanation that these episodes are the body's way of dealing with psychological stress. I'm hoping that they will continue to examine the PTSD connection and in doing so keep in mind the latest trauma research, which shows that trauma causes significant dysfunction to the autonomic and endocrine systems.